1. Symptom: Grey screen, cursor, no response from buttons (no menus)

2. Solution: Kill the X-session with (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace)

3. Cause: /tmp is in mode 000. To remedy set the mode on /tmp to 777.

C. Worst Case Scenario #3: Tease Mode
 

1. Symptom: X looks like it's going to start, but doesn't. One of the last message on the screen is "No valid modes found." Console prompt is returned.

2. Solution: Re-run Xconfigurator and choose "Generic Multisync" as the monitor.

3. You can also run the follwing command to help diagnose the problem:
 

X -probeonly >& /tmp/Xout.txt
 
This will create the file /tmp/Xout.txt which you can look at to help determine a solution. Here's an example output